#1 Rough round the edges... (You Know)

And so a podcast is born. Yes, episode #1 of Your New Favourite Podcast is finally out!

This first one is a little rough round the edges plus it's my first go at editing out all my "umms" etc but I'm just happy to get it out the door - I've been promising it for a long time.

Topics covered include some admin, quick mention to some upcoming reviews and a healthy rant about recruitment agencies and the the interview process, while I play Civilization Revolution - link to my review as mentioned in the podcast/audioblog.

As to the frequency of these, I've yet to make my mind up but expect the next one in a couple a weeks as I'm pretty busy (but not too busy as to play games and record my angry thoughts seemingly...)

For now, enjoy, leave comments, feedback or even topics/questions you want me to throw my two cents at.

Featured Music:
Intro/Outro - Pacific Theatre - Yourcodenameis:milo
When We Were Younger and Better, A Failsafe, Music is Music as Devices are Kisses is Everything, Little Victories - all by 65daysofstatic.





iTunes link

[MP3] Download the show (21:38) (Right click, Save as)

#0 On The Box!

The team here at Your New Favourite Blog have been busy expanding and we're (read: I'm) proud to offer a new themed post - On The Box.

The whole purpose of the new themed post is to throw out some thoughts regarding TV and Film - praise those faves of mine and berate those poor offerings that I was tricked into watching.

Anyways, stay tuned and expect On The Box to be a fairly regular occurance. I have mentioned in the past that I am a subscriber to the LoveFilm service so get to watch Films on a regular basis. Also there's a number of highly anticipated shows that have started up in recent weeks: 24, Lost, Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica and there's also older shows like the Wire which I need to get back into so it's not like I'll be struggling to find stuff to cover.
I leave you with a link to an old rant about Peter Jackson's King Kong, oh dear... I mean enjoy!

#14 I need a Civ Rev here!

Apologies, that's a very dubious play on words used for a title. I am referring to the game Civ Rev, or Civilization Revolution to give it its full title. This is the latest iteration of the popular Civilization series and the first to appear on consoles, hence the "Revolution" in the name.

For those not in the know, Civilization is a turn based strategy game where you are the leader of one of 16 famous civilizations (Caesar for the Romans, Cleopatra for the Egyptians, Queen Elizabeth for the British etc), and you are tasked with developing and improving your civilization, befriending other civilizations, eliminating others, and guiding your civilization towards one of the four victory conditions. Those being Economic (Building the World Bank), Democratic (Constructing the United Nations), Space (Building a craft that reaches Alpha Centauri) or Domination (Eliminating all other Civilizations from the World Map). Now Civ Rev is based on Civilization 4 (the most recent PC release), but has been simplified and streamlined to create a simpler and faster version of the game, no doubt to suit the console player that prefers a shorter experience, because of a shorter attention span maybe?...



The game primarily involves adding buildings to cities, creating wonders, even creating new cities and roads to link them up, not to mention units used to defend your own cities and attack others. As to be expected, different buildings offer specific attributes, like the ability to increase production or gold etc - these kind of mechanics have been forged long ago so there are no big surprises but the interface makes it very easy to mange build queues, production priorities.

Always with real-time strategy/turn-based strategy games, the control scheme is very important and especially with the PC pedigree the game has, there is a lot of stake here. Fortunately with the simplified gameplay, the controls work extremely well on the controller – if anything, the fact that the game is turn-based lends itself very well to the consoles.

it is so very easy and comfortable to drop into the “just one more turn” mentality

Whether it be moving units around the map, browsing buildings to potentially build or switching between cities is all incredibly straightforward, although navigation can get a little laggy towards the end of the game when the map is much more densely populated.

The game could also be considered a "Revolution" in terms of its graphical style. Civ Rev has taken a departure from the realism of the numbered games on the PC and uses a cartoony style, in particular the advisers/toons which appear during the game. They are charming enough but their verbal uttering in a made-up language akin to the Sims really started to grate, and I often reach for the OK button. The actual graphics are pretty average compared with current gen expectations but does fit the cartoony style well.

Battle animations are enjoyable to watch and a strange compulsion comes over wishing the little buggers on - although the cartwheeling planes do look a little daft, especially when facing other planes. Towards the end of the game when the map is full of cities and switching between them zooms out the map (you do get to see the curvature of the world which is quite cool) and this blue fog-of-war appears until it finishes zooms in. There is also some pop in as well which is a disappointment considering the level of graphical quality.


The sign of any great game is how difficult it is to put down. I probably sound like a broken record but the quickened gameplay is completely responsible – it is so very easy and comfortable to drop into the “just one more turn” mentality. Even though the game has been tailored for shorter play sessions, I often found myself completing a game from start to finish in one or two sittings.

Ultimately the game is a lot of fun but can get repetitive after a while. For each civilization, there are unique bonuses to be had when you progress through the different eras, but these usually become a formality when you reach the modern era. The Xbox 360 version was the one I tried and, predictably, there is an achievement for winning with each civilization, so if you care for them then they're an incentive to continue playing. The difficulty can be increased and this only serves to increase the aggressiveness of the AI opponents.


Speaking of the AI opponents, they lean heavily towards the aggressive and hostile end of the spectrum – Often alliances formed a mere handful of turns ago become threats of annihilation. With the randomly generated maps, your game can sometimes be doomed if your starting position is a little too close to another civilization. Also, a small peeve, but I found it terribly annoying that the AI could effectively hold me to ransom by offering X turns of peace in exchange for an important technology that I had spent a long time researching, but it seems not possible for me to do the same back – not fair!

Like a high percentage of this generation's games, the online play ensures its longevity. Playing online is exactly the same as playing a standard game against the AI. Players will compete on a random map with Barbarian villages, lost artifacts etc and the unpredictability of playing with other real life people can be very interesting and introduce a level of strategy that has perhaps been removed from the game, provided of course that the players stay in the game. Yes, Civ Rev games are now shorter but they can still easily stretch to a couple of hours, especially when waiting for the other human players to finish their turns.

I was immediately gripped by the demo when it was released and was very keen to play the full version ever since. After finally getting the game, I am very happy to sink a few hours into this - I've found it's very useful to play while I listen to one of the longer podcasts I subscribe to as there are no crucial story cutscenes to pay attention to, or online friends/players to chat to as I go. Whilst each civilization receives a unique bonus at the turn of each era, the playstyle is predominantly the same for every civ.


With Civ Rev, whilst the game is a lot of fun, the meat of the game is apparent from the get go - there are no plot twists, there are no climactic events, it's all very samey, which while enjoyable in brief playthroughs, has had to give away to other games thanks to the depth in quality of releases recently.

#5 Bring a civilization to its knees...

Or drive someone to insanity. These are two of the explanations of where the band 65daysofstatic draw their name from. The two explanations being that locking someone up for 65 days with nothing but radio static being played will turn them insane, or if a civilization is cut off from any outside communication, it will drive itself to anarchy. Whatever the reason is, these guys (also British :D) and the music pieces they make are simply awesome, other-worldly at their best.

65daysofstatic are an instrumental outfit, I guess you could label them as post-rock if you wanted to play that game. All I know after checking out a fair few instrumental bands, there is a satisfying urgency to their sound, as opposed to very quiet, subtle wandering pieces which groups like Mogwai are all too guilty of. No, what we have here is intricately layered guitars, keys, bass and drums - there are no vocals here and I feel that the songs are better without them. It's incredibly pretentious but I believe that having listened to the majority of their songs, favourites being "Hole", "Retreat! Retreat!", "While We Were Younger and Better", "Little Victories", the list goes on, that lyrics could not be found to fit these songs which now circle in my head. 65days are masters of the quiet/loud dynamic and expertly utilise the build-up to crescendo and then beyond. Some could argue that it all becomes a bit too formulaic, but they do enough to keep it fresh, and I'm happy for the adventure that I'm taken on...

You get the feeling that every little bit of feedback is completely purposeful, every tiny amount of leftover buzz from quick slides and chord changes are all there to provide something, to add to the whole.

That being said, it's not all dreamscapes and audio wet dreams, some of the material does miss the mark, and especially their remixes including famous pop songs like Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" I could happily do without. I have to qualify this that not all their work is perfect, but their highs more than make up for their lows. In particular the song "Hole" is a 4 and a half minutes roller coaster for the ear. Each of the elements working together but each doing their own thing, keys being delicate and enchanting, guitars that dance a melody and swell to meet the drums and bass - they are loud and distortion laden when they need to be, and only when they need to be. You get the feeling that every little bit of feedback is completely purposeful, every tiny amount of leftover buzz from quick slides and chord changes are all there to provide something, to add to the whole. The whole song ebbs and flows together - the drums and bass forever keeping the pace and explode at the "choruses" but never take over. In fact, while some songs do suggest that drum machines, pre-recorded drum loops may have been used, I think the drumming featured is some of the best I've heard, World class. Every listen is slightly different I find, focusing on a particular element whether it be the drums, the keys - each element on their own is quite simple but as mentioned above, it's the layering which ties it all together. They might be considered a headphones band for this reason, I'd love to throw down the challenge and find someone that could not find something in their songs that they really appreciate.

Since starting to listen to 65daysofstatic, they have shot up my last.fm charts, Hole in particular is now my 2nd most listened to song if statistics are to be believed. All I can say is go check these guys out, at their peak, they really are something else, a combination of challenging your expectations the first listen through, and then the anticipation of the song going Boom! on subsequent listens.

For those already converted, a high five awaits you...

P.S. Excellent jogging/running music.